There is known a MEMS in which minute electrical and mechanical components are integrated. As the MEMS, a micro relay, a pressure sensor, an acceleration sensor, or the like is exemplified. The MEMS is preferably manufactured by using room temperature bonding that has large bonding strength and does not require pressing with a load or thermal treatment. It is preferable that a room temperature bonding apparatus for this purpose is used for mass production of products, has a long lifetime, and is compact in size. Further, it is preferable that the room temperature bonding apparatus is convenient upon mass production of products, and produces a large production quantity per unit time.
There is known a room temperature bonding method in which two substrates formed with a plurality of patterns are bonded to a bonding substrate to thereby form a plurality of devices on the bonding substrate. In such a room temperature bonding method, preferably, a yield of the plurality of devices is improved and a load is more uniformly imposed on bonding surfaces.
Japanese patent No. 2791429 discloses a method for bonding silicon wafers, which realizes large bonding strength and does not require pressing with a load nor thermal treatment. The room temperature bonding method of silicon wafers is a method for bonding a silicon wafer to another silicon wafer, and characterized in that bonding surfaces of the both silicon wafers are sputter-etched prior to bonding by irradiating the bonding surfaces of the silicon wafers with an inert gas ion beam or an inert gas high-speed atomic beam in vacuum at room temperature.
Japanese patent publication No. 2001-351892 discloses a mounting method in which the bonding method is appropriately adapted more conveniently to an actual mounting process that requires mass production, and at the same time, the tact time of the whole mounting process is shortened. The mounting method is a mounting method for bonding a plurality of objects to be bonded to each other, and includes a cleaning step of cleaning surfaces of the respective objects by irradiating the surfaces with an energy wave, a transporting step of transporting the cleaned objects to a mounting step, and a mounting step of bonding the cleaned surfaces of the respective transported objects to each other at a room temperature.
Japanese patent publication No. 2003-318219 discloses a mounting method, which enables bonding surfaces to be washed effectively and uniformly by energetic wave or energetic particles, and avoids a problem of sticking of impurities due to opposed chamber wall surface etching also in washing in an inside of a chamber. The mounting method is characterized in that the energetic wave or energetic particles is emitted into a clearance formed between opposed bonding matters by one irradiation means for practically washing bonding surfaces of both of the bonding matters simultaneously; at least one of the bonding matters is rotated in the washing; and after a relative position between the washed bonding matters is aligned, the bonding matters are bonded mutually.
Japanese patent No. 3970304 discloses a room temperature bonding apparatus that can be compact in size and low in cost; enables an upper limit of a press-contact load to be extended eliminating restriction of a stage withstand load; and increases reliability at the time of application to an object that requires a high load upon bonding. The room temperature bonding apparatus includes: a bonding chamber that generates a vacuum ambient for room temperature bonding between an upper substrate and a lower substrate; an upper stage that is placed inside the bonding chamber and supports the upper substrate in the vacuum ambient; a carriage that is placed inside the bonding chamber and supports the lower substrate in the vacuum ambient; an elastic guide that is integrally bonded to the carriage; a positioning stage that is placed inside the bonding chamber and supports the elastic guide movably in a horizontal direction; a first mechanism that drives the elastic guide to move the carriage in the horizontal direction; a second mechanism that moves the upper stage in a vertical direction vertical to the horizontal direction; and a carriage support table that is placed inside the bonding chamber, and supports the carriage in a direction in which the upper stage moves when the lower substrate and the upper substrate are brought into press contact with each other. The elastic guide supports the carriage so as to prevent the carriage from coming into contact with the carriage support table when the lower substrate and the upper substrate are not in contact with each other, and is elastically deformed such that the carriage comes into contact with the carriage support table when the lower substrate and the upper substrate are brought into press contact with each other.
Japanese patent publication No. 2002-064042 discloses a mounting method in which a highly reliable bonding state can be obtained finally with extremely high accuracy. The mounting method is a mounting method for mutually bonding a plurality of objects to be bonded, and characterized in that a first object to be bonded, a second object to be bonded and its holding means, and a backup member having a positioning reference plane are separately arranged in this order; a parallelism of the second object to be bonded or its holding means is adjusted with respect to the positioning reference plane of the backup member; at the same time, a parallelism of the first object to be bonded or its holding means is adjusted with respect to the second object to be bonded or its holding means; the first and second objects to be bonded are temporarily bonded each other with both of the objects being in contact with each other; and then both of the objects are pressed against each other to be properly bonded to each other with the holding means of the second object to be bonded being brought into contact with the positioning reference place of the backup member.